


Switch

by dumbdpaus



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Some Humor, Warnings May Change, also danny is trans, and everyone's queer, and i am taking it v seriously, it will loosely follow the series except for the parts it will ignore entirely, the "sam and tucker aren't there for the accident but kwan is" au that no one asked for or wants!, yeah i am writing one of my own stupid aus from my stupid blog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-08-16 19:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbdpaus/pseuds/dumbdpaus
Summary: Kwan doesn't really want to deal with Fenton's new ghost-powers problem, but he wants his mom to find out that he'd dared another kid to do something dangerous and irresponsible even less. So he strikes a deal with the runt: don't tell his parents, and Kwan will keep Dash off his back for three months and help him figure out how to stop falling through the floors.For his part, Danny just wants to get back to normal and Kwan is the only one who even knows what the problem is, so he doesn't have much of a choice in who to turn to. Still, they're both just looking forward to when things can go back to normal.Then other ghosts start coming through the portal and everything gets real complicated, real quick.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Making A Fic Based Off My Own Stupid Au And I'm Physically Incapable Of Writing Crack So I'm Taking This Seriously Enjoy
> 
> come find me at reallydumbdannyphantomaus.tumblr.com

“Okay,” Kwan said. “Okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay.”

“Not helping, dude.”

“Okay!” Kwan said, clapping his hands together. “So you’re like, dead or something?”

Fenton groaned from where he was splayed on the floor. “Or something,” he said. Then, quieter: “I hope.” His chest heaved, which Kwan supposed meant he wasn’t dead, but his hair was white now and he was glowing—fuck, he was _glowing_ , like a goddamn jellyfish or some shit—and he’d been electrocuted in what his parents called a _ghost_ portal (which was maybe-kinda Kwan’s fault, maybe) and okay yeah, he definitely just disappeared for a second there, so what was Kwan _supposed_ to think?

The whole lab was awash in a toxic green glow from the now-functional ghost portal—or, at least, the now-projecting-a-giant-neon-green-spiral portal-thing. Kwan put his right hand into the middle of the swirl up to his elbow; it was cold, and pin pricks of electricity ran up his forearm.

“What part of this situation makes you think messing around with the portal is still a good idea?” Fenton said, sitting up.

Kwan jumped back from the whatever-it-was. “Uh, right. So,” he said, “what do we do now?”

“Tell my parents?”

Kwan winced. He’d been the one to dare Fenton to go into the portal after all, so he could see how this might be presented as being all his fault. Personally, he’d blame Lancer for assigning them a project so boring that he’d even turned to Fenton’s weirdo parents’ inventions for entertainment.

“Or—hear me out—what if we pretend this never happened and never tell anyone that we were down here?”

“Dude, my hair is white, my eyes are green, I’m _glowing_ and my foot is invisible—scratch that my foot is gone, holy crap, Kwan my foot is _in the ground_ holy—” Fenton thrust his leg in the air from where it had been sinking through the floor as his foot faded back into view. “Do you honestly think that there’s anyone in the world who _wouldn’t notice this_?”

“Maybe it’s temporary?”

Fenton threw him a withering glare, which, okay, he probably deserved. Maybe. A little. As Fenton opened his mouth to say something, a white ring appeared around his waist before splitting in two parts, traveling up and down his body, taking away the weird glow and the white hair, leaving behind the normal-ish hazmat suit that Fenton had been wearing into the portal-thing.

“See?” Kwan said. “Temporary!”

“We don’t know that!” Fenton stood up, wobbling a little on his feet. “We don’t know anything about this. It could be a huge problem for the rest of my life.”

“Or it could be fine, and you’d be getting us both in trouble for no reason.”

“Glad to know you’re so concerned about my well-being.”

“What about _my_ well-being, Fenton? My mom will kill me if she finds out about this, and I bet your parents won’t be happy either.”

Fenton grimaced. Kwan took it as a concession.

“Exactly! You know I’m right. So why don’t we just… wait and see?”

“Wait for what? Me to fall all the way to the center of the earth and die?”

“That’s not gonna happen, dude. If things get too weird, we’ll… tell them. But for now, let’s just pretend nothing happened.” Fenton still frowned, so Kwan sighed. “I’ll keep Dash off your back for a month?”

Fenton narrowed his eyes. “Three months.”

“Two.”

“Three or I call my parents right now.”

“Fine,” Kwan said through gritted teeth, “three months. Happy?”

“Ecstatic. Now let’s go do the stupid project before my parents get back.” Fenton started up the stairs, then stopped and looked back at Kwan with a sigh. “You’re still going to make me do all the work, aren’t you?”

Kwan smiled.

 

* * *

 

By Monday, Kwan had more-or-less forgotten about the whole thing. He hadn’t received any the-world-is-ending texts from Fenton, so he figured their problems were over.

Until Fenton cornered him at lunch.

“Hey, Kwan,” he said. “I need to talk to you real quick. About the _English project_.”

“Didn’t we finish that?” Kwan said. Fenton closed his eyes for a long second and took a deep breath. “Oh. _Oh_. That project. Right.”

“Yeah,” Fenton said. “ _That project_.”

“Right. So, you wanna…”

“Go talk about it in the library? Great idea, let’s go.”

As Fenton grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him from the cafeteria, Star whispered to Paulina, “So they’re banging or what?” Paulina shrugged. Kwan choked.

 

* * *

 

“Okay Fenton,” he said as the broom closet door swung shut behind him, “ground rule? Don’t… do that. Ever again.”

“Dude, I don’t know if you realized this but you’re _never alone_ during school hours. Seriously, you and Dash are like attached at the hip. What was I _supposed_ to do?”

“Uh, text me?” Kwan waved his phone in front of Fenton’s face.

“I don’t have your number, dumbass.”

“Oh. Right.” Kwan cleared his throat. “Anyway. What did you want, nerd?”

As if on cue, Fenton’s right arm vanished and his backpack, which had been slung over his right shoulder, fell to the ground with a _thud_. Fenton groaned and screwed up his face (kinda like Dash did when they were playing Call of Duty or learning a new set of plays) and his arm reappeared. He stared at his bag for a long moment, then flicked his eyes up to Kwan.

“ _Temporary_.”

Kwan ignored the jab. “Okay, I know I’ve seen it before, but that is still freaky as hell. Does it, like, hurt?”

“No,” Fenton said. “It’s kinda… tingly. But not bad.”

“Has anyone noticed anything?”

“Not yet, thankfully.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Fenton made a sound somewhere between a cough and a groan. “‘What’s the problem?’ What’s the—I broke three beakers today. Three! I fell through the floor today in gym—and by the way, we keep an absurd amount of meat underneath the school and it’s kinda weird, but still not as weird as the fact that I _fell through the floor_ —and Tetslaff gave me detention because she thought I was skipping. Sam and Tucker both think I’m losing my mind, and I’m not so sure they're wrong!”

“Woah dude, chill.”

Fenton stood there for a moment, mouth hanging open in silence for long enough that Kwan thought maybe he was done before he screeched.

“ _Chill_?! I fell _through_ the floor today, Kwan! Through it! And you want me to _chill_?”

Kwan held his hands up in a placating manner. “Okay okay, you’ve got a point, but you need to calm down before anyone hears you.”

Fenton snorted and glared at him. “Fine. But you’re still a dick.”

Kwan rolled his eyes. “Like I care. Anyway, was there any point to this? Other than you freaking out at me?” he said. “Wait. Are you backing out? ‘Cause if you’re backing out, I’m gonna tell Dash he needs to whale on you extra for the next year, I swear to god—”

“I’m not backing out,” Fenton said. “I’m telling you that if you want this to stay secret, you’re gonna have to help me figure this out.”

Kwan blinked. “So you mean we’re gonna like… hang out?”

“Look, I need help with this. And until I figure out how to control this… ghost-whatever, people could find out about it. And if people find out about it, my parents will eventually find out about it whether I tell them or not. So you’re going to ‘hang out’ with me until I stop destroying every beaker I touch and then we go our separate ways.” Fenton stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

Kwan dragged his hand down his face. “You’re such a _nerd_ ,” he said. “What exactly do you think I’m going to be able to do that you can’t do yourself? You’re the one with the weird ghost thing and the weird ghost parents.”

“To be honest, I don’t know, but I haven’t gotten anywhere by myself yet. And since you got me into this mess, you can help get me out of it, too. Do we have a deal or what?”

With a sigh, he grabbed Fenton’s hand and shook it once, twice, three times. “Yeah, fine, we got a deal. Just no hanging out where people can see us, okay?”

“Believe me, I don’t want to be seen with you any more than you want to be seen with me.” Fenton dug a scrap of paper out of his back pocket. “Here’s my phone number. Text me when you’re free this week and we’ll get to work.”

Kwan groaned. “Counting down the days, believe me.”

 

* * *

 

“So,” Dash said, slinging his arm around Kwan as school let out, “I’ve got a three o’clock beating scheduled for Fenturd today, but I’m free after. Wanna go pig out at the Nasty Burger?”

“Yeah sure—actually, wait no.” Kwan hit himself in the forehead; how had he forgotten already? “I’ve got a project with Fenton to work on today.” Monday was one of his only days without football practice so he texted Fenton that they could meet up for the whole… ghost thing.

“Oh come on, just ditch him to do the project himself. That’s what nerds are for.”

Kwan groaned. If only. “Can’t,” he said. “My mom’s been riding my ass about my English grade—you know how she is.”

Dash frowned and raised an eyebrow. “Dude, your mom’s like the chillest person in the world about grades. And you’ve got a B in English.”

Oh shit, Dash was right. He should’ve thought this through while napping in Algebra. “Uh, I mean, like, academic integrity? Yeah, that. Like she found out I was letting Fenton do all the work and she got pissed so now I have to prove to her that I’m ‘doing my part’ or some shit.” That was plausible, right?

Dash’s face smoothed out and he _hmm_ ed in sympathy. “Oh shit man, that’s the worst. Is that what that weird thing at lunch was about?”

“Yeah.”

“So… that means no Nasty Burger?”

Kwan rolled his eyes. He loved Dash, but the guy could be a bit dense sometimes. “Yeah, and could you lay off Fenton for a little while here? He’s actually doing me a solid by redoing this project with me, so I told him I’d get you off his back for a while.”

“What! Dude, no, Fentoenail’s my favorite.” Kwan grimaced. He knew Dash wasn’t going to be happy, but if he didn’t agree to this then Kwan’s life was over. If his mom found out he’d maybe-kinda helped kill his classmate a little, he’d be grounded until he was forty-three—if he was lucky. “What am I supposed to do instead, beat Mikey? That nerd collapses like a wet paper towel when I look at him funny. Fentoad is, like, entertaining, at least.”

“I know, it sucks dude, but please? I really need this, Dash.” Dash hesitated. Kwan cursed Fenton under his breath; the runt better appreciate this. “Ok fine, if you lay off for three months, you can have my… my T-B-Twelve jersey. For a year.”

Dash stopped. “You serious? Dude, you value that more than your own life. Brady himself spilled a beer on it after signing it. You tried to get your mom to take out an insurance policy on it!”

“Yeah, so it’s only for a year, and you better give it back to me without even a fucking hint of damage, okay? But you can have it on display and everything for a whole year. I’ll bring it to school tomorrow. Deal?”

Yeah, Fenton better appreciate the hell out of this.

“Hell yeah!” Dash pulled out his phone. “Let me just set a replacement beating with Mikey and I’ll let you go to your _academic integrity_.” Dash snorted a laugh. “Sucks to be you, bro. See you later.” He waved Kwan off and jogged over to the football field, where the band geeks would be heading out to practice right about now.

Fenton’s house towered in the distance, the UFO-esque metal contraption on top a monument to his impending shame. Kwan shouldered his backpack and trudged onward.

 

* * *

 

“Can we both agree that this has been a failure? Go our separate ways? Never speak again?” Kwan lounged on Fenton's bed, flicking through a Sports Illustrated magazine he'd brought with him. If he left in the next ten minutes, he could probably still meet Dash and the others at Nasty Burger.

Fenton glared up at him from the floor. “It's been fifteen minutes, Kwan, and _you_ haven't done anything.”

“Neither have you,” Kwan said. “You just been sitting there, grunting, for fifteen minutes. This is worse than detention with Lancer.”

Fenton snorted. “That's a lie; nothing's worse than detention with Lancer.”

“Good point, but this still sucks.”

“Well, maybe, if you tried to help, we could get something done.”

Kwan rolled into a sitting position. “I'm still not sure what you expect from me.”

“Some effort would be nice.”

“Fine.” They lapsed into silence. Kwan drummed his fingers on his knees and hummed the Mission Impossible theme under his breath.

“Kwan!”

“What? I'm thinking.”

Fenton rubbed at his temples. “If I had to be dared into the ghost portal by someone, why did that someone have to be you?”

“Like I'm so happy about it—wait, maybe that's it?”

“What?”

“The portal?” Fenton blinked at him. “If this whole thing started with the portal, maybe we need to learn more about it? Go back to where it started?”

“That's... not a bad idea, actually.” Fenton stood up and brushed himself off. “Better than anything I've thought of, at least. My parents have been in the lab non-stop ever since we... did whatever-it-was that fixed the portal.”

“You mean when you pushed the 'on' button? That your parents put on the inside?”

Fenton winced. “Yeah, my parents are... lacking in common sense. Still, they built the damn thing; they should know more about it. We can get some answers there.”

 

* * *

 

“I have no idea how the portal started working,” Fenton's dad said, rapping his knuckles against the frame of the portal, “but the important thing is that it works now, letting ghosts into our world whether I want it to or not!”

Kwan bit his lip to keep from screaming and took a deep breath. “How can you build something,” he said, “and not know how it works?”

Fenton elbowed him. Oh yeah. They'd been the ones to turn it on, after all.

Fenton's mom wiped some imaginary sweat from her brow as she fiddled with some weird sensor-thing, waving it in front of the swirling portal. “It's not really that simple,” she said. “We understand the concept of the portal—that we had to generate a massive amount of power to punch through the wall separating this dimension from the ghosts' dimension—and we knew that the energy used to make the hole needed to be similar to that of the other dimension, but we don't really know anything about the world on the other side of the portal, or why it just suddenly started working last weekend. But that's the joy of science!”

“Having no clue what's going on?” Kwan said. Fenton elbowed him again for that and Kwan shot him a glare.

“Exactly!” Mr. Fenton said, butting his way back into the conversation. “What could be better than discovering something completely new? Who knows what we'll find?”

“Okay, Mom and Dad, that's really inspiring and all, but like... what _do_ you know?”

“We know it feels cold and tingly when you put your hand in it!” Mr. Fenton said.

“I could've told you that,” Kwan said.

Ms. Fenton frowned at him. “What was that?”

“Nothing!” Fenton slapped a hand over Kwan's mouth. “So, uh, what else?”

“Not much,” Ms. Fenton said. “Our working theory is that it needed a foothold in our world to create a successful bridge between the two, something to connect human to ghost. But we don't know what the foothold is, or was, or what changed between our first test and now.”

All this talk of dimensions and ecto-energy and footholds was going over Kwan's head, but something seemed to have clicked with Fenton, who was ashen next to him.

“Sweetie?” Fenton's mom said. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Fenton said, voice cracking, “just realized I've been wearing my binder for too long today gotta go change bye!”

Then he was gone, racing up the stairs and slamming the door shut behind him; for a nerd, he could really book it.

Kwan flicked his eyes over to Fenton's parents. The three of them stood in silence for a long moment before Kwan broke it. “I'm... gonna go too. We've got... English project... nice talking bye!”

He ran up the stairs after Fenton, two at a time, out of the basement and up to the second floor and into Fenton's room. “Dude,” he said, gasping for breath, “what was that—woah.”

He couldn't have gotten to the room much later than Fenton, but it looked like everything Fenton owned had been flung on the floor—school papers and pencils and clothes that had been ripped off their hangers and tossed into heaps. In the middle of the chaos sat Fenton, chest heaving with each rattling breath, white-knuckled hands clenched in his hair. Tears streaked down his face and he sobbed as he saw Kwan, curling away from him and into the wall.

Panic attack then. Great. Kwan was _so_ not equipped to handle this.

“Hey Fenton?” Kwan said, keeping his voice low as he knelt in front of Fenton. “Look, I don't know what's got you so freaked out, but you need to calm down.”

Fenton looked up to glare at him. “Trying,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Try harder,” Kwan said, and he grimaced at his own words. “Sorry. That was stupid. Maybe try—breathing with me? Nice and slow?” That was something you did for people who were panicking, right?

Kwan lowered himself to sit next to Fenton and slowed his own breathing. He counted to four in head before exhaling for another four. It probably wasn't exactly what they were supposed to do, but Kwan wasn't exactly an expert. “Come on,” he said, “in and out. In.... and out.”

Kwan wasn't sure how long they sat there, but eventually Fenton's gasps quieted, smoothed out as his breathing deepened. Fenton brought a shaky hand up to wipe away the drying tears on his face.

“You... okay?”

Fenton nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Good, then,” Kwan said. He looked at his hands and twirled his thumbs around for a moment. “So, uh, what's got you so freaked out then?”

Fenton took another shuddering breath. “Kwan, am I dead?”

“You mean like... what if the accident turned you into a ghost?”

Fenton nodded without looking up. “My mom was talking about how the portal would've needed a foothold in this world in order to function, right?”

“Yeah?”

“So what if I'm the foothold? Like, the ghost portal zapped me with a bunch of ghost-energies and now I'm turning invisible at random moments and there's this cold spot in my chest that won't go away and it feels like what Dad said about the portal and— _shit_.”

“Wait wait wait, before you freak out again,” Kwan said, “let's just—think about this. I mean, you're breathing, right? I don't think ghosts would breathe?”

Fenton scoffed. “Because we know so much about ghosts.”

“We know they're dead, right? And dead people don't breathe, but you're breathing so you're not dead.”

“Well, normal living people also don't fall through the floor.”

“So maybe you're, I dunno, part ghost? Like, if you're gonna be a bridge or whatever, wouldn't that make you half of each? Or something?”

Fenton opened his mouth to argue, then frowned like he was considering it. “You know, I can't believe I'm saying this, but you might be right. Not sure how much better I feel about being _half_ -dead but... thanks, I guess.”

Kwan shrugged. “Still pretty freaky no matter what. Anyway,” he said, standing up, “are we done for the day? Because one mental breakdown is enough for me, I'm gonna be real.”

Fenton cracked a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah we're done. For now.”

“Joy.” Kwan picked his bag up off the floor. “Have fun cleaning your room, nerd. I'll be back Thursday. Try to figure out something between now and then so we can end these get-togethers as quickly as possible.”

Fenton waved him off. “Whatever. See you later.”

“See you. Don't fall through the bed tonight.”

“Oh, fuck off.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny's struggling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took me forever to get out, but! here it is! many thanks to lexosaurus for both writing motivation and being my editor

“Mr. Fenton,” Lancer said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “that’s the fifth beaker you’ve dropped this week.”

Snickers rose from Danny’s classmates. His cheeks flushed and he scuffed his shoe along the floor. “I’m aware,” he said.

“It’s only Tuesday.”

“I’m aware, Mr. Lancer.” The snickering swelled behind him.

Lancer sighed. “I don’t know why you’re all of a sudden Mr. Butterfingers, but for the remainder of this lab, why don’t you let Ms. Manson handle the fragile school property?”

“That’s… probably a good idea,” he said. Nerves made his disappearing-thing worse, he’d discovered, and dropping the beakers became a self-fulfilling prophecy: he dropped a beaker, which made him nervous that he would drop the next one, which made his disappearing-thing worse, so he dropped another beaker, and so on and so forth. He’d dropped his cereal bowl this morning, too, and spent ten minutes wiping up soggy cornflakes instead of eating them. At this rate, he’d never be able to hold anything breakable ever again.

He slipped back over to his seat in between Tucker and Sam, face still burning bright red.

“Dude,” Tucker said, “you okay?”

“Fine,” he said. “Just a… weird night last night.”

Sam raised an eyebrow at him. “What does that have to do with dropping beakers?”

Danny shrugged. “I think I’m just tired.”

“You _think_?”

“Look, I’ve already been humiliated enough for one day, okay? I appreciate the concern, but can we talk about something else? Anything?”

Sam opened her mouth like she was going to keep arguing but Tucker cut her off, slinging an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “You mean like how they’re releasing a new expansion pack for Doomed on Thursday?” Tucker said ignoring Sam’s dirty look. “Oh man, if you’re sleep deprived today, just wait until Friday.”

Sam rolled her eyes, but allowed the conversation to shift. “You’re not seriously planning on pulling an all-nighter Thursday, are you?”

“Oh, come on, Sam, like you weren’t planning to do the exact same thing.”

A light blush dotted her cheeks. “I’m going to sleep by four, actually.”

Danny picked up the lab assignment and glanced it over. Dissolving a Life-Saver in ginger ale. What a horrendously boring lab, and they couldn’t even drink the ginger ale.

“Oh,” Tucker said, “because that is _so much better_. You sure told me.”

“Whatever, it’s better than nothing, doofus.”

“Well, me and Danny—”

“—’Danny and I,’ Tucker, seriously, no wonder your English grade sucks—”

“—are gonna stay up all night and have a blast.”

“Actually,” Danny said without taking his eyes off the lab worksheet, “I may be a little late to the Doomed party.” Thursday was when Kwan was supposed to come back over.

Tucker’s jaw dropped. “You _what_?”

“Sorry dude, but—”

“Mr. Foley, Mr. Fenton, Ms. Manson.” Danny jumped at the Lancer’s voice behind him. “If you would be so kind as to divert your attention from video games to your schoolwork.”

“But Mr. Lancer—”

“No buts, Mr. Foley. I expect you all to pay close attention to your lab.”

“‘Pay close attention’? No offense, sir,” Tucker said, ignoring Danny and Sam as they sliced their hands across their throats, “but this is literally the most boring lab you’ve ever given us and that’s saying something.”

“Oh, is that so, Mr. Foley? Then you can be extra bored with me in detention this afternoon.” Lancer’s pitch never rose, but his jaw clenched and his forehead had more wrinkles than normal. It was still early yet in the school year; Lancer didn’t start losing it until around Halloween, according to the upperclassmen. If Tucker had tried that in November, Danny figured he would’ve gotten detention for a week instead of an afternoon, and maybe hearing loss in one of his ears, if the rumors about the octaves Lancer could reach were true.

Tucker opened his mouth again—to say what, Danny wasn’t sure, but there was no way that it was going to help his case—and Danny slapped his hand over his friend’s mouth and answered for him. “Yes, sir.”

Lancer narrowed his eyes at them. “Get back to work,” he said, and walked over to his desk, passing by a giggling Star and Paulina.

Danny peeled his hand off Tucker’s face as Tucker smacked himself in the forehead. “I’m my own worst enemy, aren’t I?”

“Pretty much,” Sam said, and sighed. “Come on, let’s do the stupid lab before he gives us all detention.”

And if Danny stayed seated the whole time because he was invisible from the waist down, well, nobody had to know.

 

* * *

 

“Oh man,” Tucker said as the bell rang, “worst class ever.”

Danny grabbed his backpack, glanced down to make sure he could see his legs, and followed his friends out of Lancer’s classroom. He kept his head down, focused on the ever-present prickling underneath his skin. He inspects his body, piece by piece. Right arm, check. Left arm, check. Right leg, left leg, torso; check, check, check. It was exhausting, but it was the only way he could keep his ghost-thing under control.

Sam snorted beside him and Danny jumped at the noise.

“Just remember, Tuck: you’re your own worst enemy,” Sam said. She turned away from the boys. “See you at lunch.”

Danny let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. As much as he loved Sam, she could be… _pushy_. She didn’t _want_ to know what was going on, she _demanded_ to. She was always like this when she thought he was hiding something, and it had led to more than one fight between them. He was nowhere near ready for her to know this secret yet. Or Tucker, or his parents, or anyone. It had been almost a relief when Kwan had insisted that they keep it a secret.

He hadn’t thought too hard about why that was, yet.

“Dude,” Tucker said, snapping his fingers in front of Danny’s face. “Earth to Danny. Time for History? Ancient Mesopotamia? Fertile Crescent, cuneiform, Hammurabi?”

Danny blinked and shook his head a little. “Right,” he said. As his concentration slipped, his left arm tingled with intangibility.

“And Danny?” Tucker said as they started walking. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I’m ready to talk when you are.”

For the first time that day, Danny smiled.

 

* * *

 

Danny’s whole body turned invisible halfway through lunch.

It took him half a second to notice. He reached down with his fork to stab a bit of mushy peas and his arm… wasn’t there.

With a gasp, he dropped the fork and hid his arm behind his back—only to realize that was invisible, too. And so were his legs, and his feet, and—he hoped—his head. It would be just his luck to be stuck running around the cafeteria as a disembodied head.

“Huh?” Sam said, looking around. “Where the hell did Danny go?”

Tucker shrugged, taking a huge bite of his burger. “Bathroom?”

“Change back, change back,” he whispered, focusing on the cold tingle running through his limbs. He stared at where his hand should be, willing it to reappear. Nothing.

“He just left?,” Sam said, gnawing on an apple. “I swear, he’s been acting so weird this week. Looks like he’s about to fall apart at any given moment.”

“Sam,” Tucker said, “I thought we both learned our lesson about pushing too hard about these kinds of things. _Remember_?”

Danny’s breath caught in his throat.

“This isn’t like that! Something’s really upsetting him, and he needs to know he can talk to us about it. He needs to know it _won’t_ be like last time.”

“He knows. He just choosing not to tell us anyway.” When Sam glared at him, Tucker rolled his eyes. “He’s allowed to do that, Sam. Not pressuring him is part of respecting his boundaries.”

“But he’s _lying_ —”

Danny didn’t catch the rest of Sam’s response. Instead, he ran out of the cafeteria, through the crowds and then straight through the wall, down the hallway, and into a janitor’s closet. Later, he would wonder at how he didn’t fall through the floor.

In that moment, though, he barely noticed as the cold tingle left his body and he was solid and visible again. He focused instead on controlling his breathing, in and out. He pulled his knees into his chest and started counting for each breath.

Clearly, he wasn’t hiding his problems as well as he thought—not that he’d imagined he’d hidden them well in the first place. But now Sam and Tucker were talking about him like they were his parents and not his friends—and it had only been two days. There was no endpoint to his troubles; nothing was getting better. Once again, he couldn’t see the way out.

Sam was wrong. It was _just_ like last time.

With a shaky hand, he pulled out his phone. His finger hovered over the contact for Kwan. Then, sighing, he locked the phone and put it away.

Alone, in the janitor’s closet, Danny cried.

 

* * *

 

 

Things did not settle after that.

Every waking moment, he spent all his energy on remaining substantial and opaque. He tripped in the hallway when his foot slipped into the linoleum. He stared down at himself all day, checking that any invisible appendages were, at least, not noticeably so.

Whatever shred of mental capacity he had left he used to avoid Sam and Tucker. He ate lunch in the janitor’s closet, arrived late to class and slipped out when the bell rang. Jazz drove him to and from school after pleading with her about all the study time he was wasting on walking. (The look on her face said she didn’t believe him, but she agreed, which was all that mattered to Danny.)

Each night, he fell into bed, exhausted, and went straight to sleep. Each night, some hours later, he fell through his bed and woke as his head clunked against the floor.

Thursday came, and he texted Sam and Tucker to let them know that he’d be missing their Doomed night. He did not respond to any of the other texts that they’d sent him since Tuesday and he turned off his phone before they could respond.

It was some sort of cosmic irony, he supposed, that the only bright spot he could find was his upcoming meetup with Kwan. He’d never like the guy, but Kwan was the only person who knew what was going on already. He might even be able to help; he certainly couldn’t make things any worse. At the very least, he’d be someone he could talk to.

 

* * *

 

“Have you tried turning it on and off again?” Kwan said. He flicked the page in his Sports Illustrated.

Danny shot him a glare. “You’re hilarious.”

Kwan shrugged. “I still don’t know what you expect from me in these little get-togethers. They’re your freaky powers, dude.”

Danny groaned. It was Thursday afternoon, and Danny should have been playing Doomed with Tucker and Sam until the wee hours of the morning so he could regret it tomorrow. Instead, he was stuck with Kwan, who was back lounging on _Danny’s_ bed, still reading the same sports magazine he’d had Monday, and who wanted to be there even less than Danny did.

“Yeah, well they’re your problem, too, in case you forgot. I’ve spent all of the past week doing everything I can to _not_ turn invisible, or fall through the floor, or whatever. I’m _dead_. Sooner or later, I’m going to slip up.”

Kwan sighed and put down the magazine. “Then maybe stop trying?”

Danny scrunched his face in confusion. “What?”

“I mean, like, trying not to do it obviously isn’t working. So why not try doing it?”

“Like… go invisible on purpose?”

Kwan scratched his head. “Yeah. If you figure out how it happens, that should make it easier to stop, right?”

“That’s… not a bad idea."

“No need to sound so surprised,” Kwan said with a snort. He picked his Sports Illustrated back up and continued reading.

Danny ignored him, closed his eyes, and focused on the cold part inside of him that hadn’t gone away since the accident. For the past week, he’d been pushing it down, shoving it in a box and sitting on it, and the cold had leaked out all the same. Now, he reached down and pulled off the lid. The cold eased out, taking up residence behind his lungs so he could feel it with every breath.

He wavered on its edges for a long moment, and then he plunged in.

The cold burst out. It raced through his body, through his muscles and veins to the ends of his hair and the tips of his toes. He was light, airy; a stiff breeze might blow him away. As he opened his eyes, the world looked… brighter. More saturated. Kwan’s letterman jacket was an impossibly vibrant red against the cornflower blue of his walls. The sun shining through the window ached against his eyes and he looked down to see he was wearing the black hazmat suit from after the portal accident.

Across the room, Kwan gasped. “Holy shit, dude. You’re a ghost again.”

Danny gulped. “Yeah.” He locked eyes with Kwan who dropped his magazine.

“You’re glowing.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re floating.”

“Ye—wait, what?” Danny looked back down. About a foot of empty space stretched between his legs and the floor. “Ho-o-oly shit.”

“Fenton. I think you can fly.”

“I can fly?” The ground fell farther away and his head bumped the ceiling. He grinned. “I can _fly_.”

He pushed the air like he was doing the breaststroke, and, instead of moving forward, tumbled upside down. The blood rushed to his head, and he wobbled in the air.

“Uh,” Danny said, “how do I make it—go?”

“I don’t know, man! Think really hard about it?”

Danny grit his teeth and managed to turn upright again. He focused on the window, picturing himself floating up to it. After a moment, though, the ghostly cold receded into his chest. A white light passed over him and all the heaviness of humanity returned.

And he fell with a _thunk_. “Ow.”

Kwan snorted.

Danny opened his mouth to say—well, something caustic, probably—but what came out was a strangled laugh. Then another. And another.

Before he knew it, he was cracking up. Danny brought his knees to his chest and hugged himself. It was a frenzied laughter, high pitched and wheezing. His cheeks and sides ached, but he couldn’t stop. Tears streamed out of his eyes. He could no longer tell if he was laughing or crying.

On the bed, Kwan was losing it as well. Danny couldn’t see him through the wetness, but he could hear the same hysterical ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. you know. he's a sad boi.
> 
> i'm also kind of struggling though because i really want to get to some of the later parts, but these parts are also v important to understand the later parts and its a struggle
> 
> anyway
> 
> please let me know what you think! or like, come chat with me at reallydumbdannyphantomaus. i'm also a sad boi


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kwan considers Danny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo! i'm hopefully going to start chugging these out now. i'm writing 300 words at least every day so that like. makes it easier. thanks again to lexosaurus who's an amazing beta! anyway, here you go

“Holy shit,” Fenton said, calling down from twenty feet above the ground. “I’m _flying_.”

It was all he’d said for the past ten minutes of awkward floating through the trees. They’d both agreed that Fenton’s bedroom was maybe not the best place to test it out; too many things to crash into, too many nosy family members to wonder what the noise was. Fenton suggested the woods, since no one went too far off the beaten path in Amity Park, and it was perfect. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of anyone else since they’d arrived.

By now, Fenton had more or less figured out how to turn into his ghost self. He couldn’t always manage to keep that form, but still—watching him transform from a bitch-ass nerd boy to a glowing, floating ghost boy? That was cool. And watching him rise up, wobbling and ungainly, two stories high? Also pretty fucking cool.

So, maybe, Kwan reasoned, just maybe, this whole ghost thing didn’t totally blow.

“Try to do the other stuff, now,” Kwan said, cupping his hands around his mouth as a makeshift megaphone. “The invisible stuff.”

“Right!”

Even from the ground, Kwan could see Fenton’s nose crinkle in concentration. His arm flickered out of view for a second, then the white light was back and a very human Fenton was falling with a strangled scream.

“Shit!” Kwan said, diving forward to catch Fenton—or, at least, break his fall. Fenton landed in his outstretched arms and Kwan rolled with the momentum, somersaulting them both into a nearby tree. His head throbbed at the collision and his chest ached from getting hit by a free-falling Fenton.

They both groaned.

“Thanks for, you know,” Fenton said, rubbing at his arm, “not letting me die.”

Kwan wheezed. “No problem.”

“How’s your head?”

Kwan felt the swiftly-forming knot on the side of his head. “Eh. I’ll live. You okay?”

Fenton groaned again. “Peachy. I’ll be one big bruise tomorrow, though.”

“Maybe,” Kwan said, sitting up, “you should’ve waited until you were on the ground.”

“Yeah, yeah, hindsight and all that.” Fenton pulled himself up. “I guess I gotta be careful about doing too much at once.”

“Apparently.”

Fenton inhaled. “Ok,” he said, “let’s try this again.” He closed his eyes and crossed his legs. After a moment, his brow furrowed and his jaw worked as he grit his teeth. The bags under his eyes stood stark against the pallor of his skin. He grunted with effort.

Nothing happened.

“Dude,” Kwan said, “is this how you’ve been dealing with it this whole time?”

“Is _what_ how I’ve been dealing with it?”

“You look fucking constipated, man.”

“Oh, gross.”

“I’m serious! You look like you’re going to shit a brick or something.”

“Well,” Fenton said, “I’ve been having this problem lately, see, where I keep turning invisible and intangible at the worst possible moments. I drop beakers and test tubes in science and fall in the hallways. Sam and Tucker know something’s up, and I can’t tell them, so I’ve just been avoiding them entirely. I failed a quiz today because my right arm went invisible and I couldn’t turn it back, so I had to do the test left-handed and only got halfway through. And whenever I try to sleep, I fall through the bed. So, you know, I’ve been a bit stressed.”

“Look, dude, all I’m saying is maybe try chilling a little. You’re wound up, which, like, I get, but it clearly isn’t helping anything. Just relax. See what happens.”

“Easy for you to say,” Fenton muttered, but he took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. The lines on his face smoothed out. His jaw unclenched. His head fell forward, and for a second, Kwan thought he had fallen asleep. Then, inch by inch, Fenton’s right arm disappeared.

“Dude,” Kwan said.

Fenton opened his eyes and looked to where his arm should be. “I did it?” he said. His face lit up in a smile. “I did it! Kwan, look!”

Fenton’s sleeve waved around, even as it looked like nothing was in it.

“Woah,” Kwan said.

Yeah, maybe this ghost-thing wasn’t totally impossible after all.

 

* * *

 

“So, Kwan,” Paulina said, resting her chin on her hands, “what’s up with you and the Fenton nerd?”

Something clenched in Kwan’s gut. “What do you mean?” he said, taking a bite of his sandwich. It went down dry, catching in his throat. Why did he think ham and cheese was a good idea? It never tasted as good when it had been sitting in his locker for a few hours.

Valerie rolled her eyes. “She means how you’ve skipped the Nasty Burger twice this week to hang out with the dweeb.”

“Okay, we aren’t ‘hanging out’,” Kwan said. He took another bite and chased it with some water.

“Yeah,” Dash said, “they have an _arrangement_.” He snickered into his hand. Across the table, Paulina’s lips curved upward, less like a smile and more like this was what she’d expected to hear.

“Woah, woah. Not like that, dumbass. He’s just—giving me a hand with something is all.”

“Oh, he’s giving you a _hand_ is he?” Star said, fluttering her eyelashes. Kwan hit himself in the forehead.

“Oh my god, _no_. My mom found out that I let him do our English project all by himself, so she freaked out and made me redo it with him. That’s it, all right?”

Paulina _tsk_ ed. “Hm, that’s more boring than I’d hoped.”

“And I don’t even get to beat him up anymore! For three whole months!”

“Oh, quit whining,” Kwan said. He took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “I’m the one who has to actually spend time with the loser.”

Dash let out a belly laugh. “You’re right, dude, you’re so right. You’re getting the short end here, for sure.” He kept chuckling as he took a large bite of—well, something brown and covered in gravy. Kwan was never quite sure what the school lunches were supposed to be.

“Whatever,” Valerie said, opening up her applesauce. “Can we stop talking about nerds now?”

“Yes, _please_ ,” Star said. “Did you hear that Wes and Jameisha broke up?”

Dash choked on his food. “Seriously? Oh, man, Wes must be crushed.”

Star shrugged. “It’s not like it’s Jameisha’s fault. She wasn’t interested anymore. It happens.”

“Still. That’s rough. He was over the moon for that girl.”

Star and Dash chattered on about the break-up for the rest of lunch. Valerie spent the time absorbed in something on her phone. Kwan stared down at his lunch and said nothing, desperate not to draw any more attention to himself.

If he’d looked up, though, he would have seen Paulina, eyes narrowed, staring straight at him.

 

* * *

 

Passing Fenton in the hallway now was uneasy.

It was impossible to ignore him. Even as he chatted with Dash about the upcoming game, his eyes slid towards Fenton’s locker. Dash said something about blocking in the B gap, Kwan said something about sliding the offensive line to the left, and Fenton ran like a scared bunny when Manson and Foley came around the corner. On the way to sixth period, Valerie and Star talked over him about the design they had planned for their art project and Fenton leaned against the wall, eyes closed, looking for all the world like he was asleep. And as the last bell rang, he spotted Fenton sprinting out of a classroom with his loser friends trailing after him, trying and failing to catch him before he got lost in the crowd.

The dweeb needed to get his act together or his secret would be out. Soon.

In the locker room as practice was about to start, Kwan pulled out his phone and started typing.

To: Fenton

_dude you gotta chill_

Putting his phone down, Kwan stripped out of his street clothes. He pulled on his undershirt and began strapping on his pads when his phone buzzed.

From: Fenton

_wow why didn’t i think of that_

Kwan rolled his eyes.

To: Fenton

_im just saying_

From: Fenton

_u really have the emotional awareness of a fruit fly dont you_

Kwan frowned. He’d really been pretty good about the whole ghost thing, all things considered. After all, _Kwan_ was the one who said they should find out more about the portal. _Kwan_ was the one who figured out what Fenton was doing wrong with his powers. He’d been helpful. Hell, he’d done more to figure it out than Fenton had.

To: Fenton [Draft]

_the hell is that supposed to mean_

Kwan’s finger hovered over the send button. Did he really want to get into this kind of conversation with Fenton? If he took the bait, there was a non-zero chance that he’d get stuck talking about _feelings_ with a _nerd_  Still, he didn’t want to take any insult lying down.

Kwan jumped out of his thoughts as Dash pounded him on his back. “Dude,” Dash said. “Hurry up. Everyone else is already on the field.”

Kwan sighed, put his phone in his locker, and finished putting on his pads. Fenton could wait.

 

* * *

 

On Saturday, he met up with Fenton in the woods again. The text message stewed in his brain for the first half hour, but Fenton didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the forest floor in his weird glowing ghost form and flicked his invisibility on and off.

It was surreal to watch, like a movie come to life. Sometimes, Fenton would disappear on the ground and reappear a few feet higher. Others, he would yelp and that was Kwan’s cue to fish him out of the ground where he’d been sinking.

He was improving, though. A few days ago, he couldn’t do any of this on command. Now, he could pretty much turn invisible whenever he wanted. Of course, he couldn’t always _not_ turn invisible when he _didn’t_ want to, but it was a work in progress. Small steps and all that.

Fenton’s gasp startled Kwan out of his thoughts and he lunged forward to grab Fenton and pull him up—except Fenton wasn’t sinking. Instead, Kwan tumbled into him as a blue-white wisp of air escaped his throat.

“Get off of me, you big lunk,” Fenton said, shoving at Kwan.

“All right, all right, sheesh,” Kwan said, clambering off. “That’s what I get for trying to help.”

“And how is knocking me over at all helpful?”

“Well, I thought you were, you know. Shoom.” He motioned downward.

“You thought I was ‘shoom’?”

Kwan grimaced. “You know what, never mind. Anyway,” he said, “what was up with that? It’s like eighty degrees; you shouldn’t be seeing your breath.”

Fenton opened his mouth to reply and the white rings formed around his waist to change him back to human. He looked down and shrugged.

“I have no idea what that was,” he said, looking back up. “I just felt really cold all of a sudden.”

“Maybe you have ice breath or some—”

Kwan cut himself off as something green and glowing floated up out of the ground between his legs. Eight appendages stretched from its blobby head. As it reached level with his face, two glowing red eyes stared straight at Kwan.

“An octopus?” Kwan said.

It screeched and thrust two of its tentacles at him, wrapping one around his throat and one around his left arm. He choked and pulled at the one around his neck with his free arm; he managed to loosen it enough to gulp a quick breath before another tentacle lashed out and grabbed his right arm.

“Holy shit,” Fenton said. He stood stiff, unmoving. Paralyzed. Kwan wanted to scream at him, but he couldn’t afford waste the air even if he could push it through his throat.

His vision started to blur at the edges, tiny black dots dancing in his peripheral. He heard Fenton shouting and his mother calling him for dinner and Dash calling the play. Green flashed by and something shrieked in his ear.

Then, the pressure on his windpipe eased and he could breathe.

He coughed and gasped and choked as the world faded back into focus. Across the clearing, Fenton was the glowing ghost boy again and he was brawling with the glowing green octopus. One of its appendages lashed out and whacked Fenton in the side, sending him careening into the ground.

Half a second later, he was back up. He flew into the octopus and gathered several of its tentacles in his fists to immobilize it. Rearing back, Fenton body slammed the octopus into a tree. It hung in space, dazed. Glancing back at Fenton, it hesitated as though sizing him up, and then fled, disappearing back into the ground.

Then the only sound in the clearing was their heavy breathing as the two boys tried to catch their breath.

“So,” Kwan said, “ghost octopus.”

Fenton turned back to human. “Ghost octopus,” he said. And he tilted over and passed out.

 

* * *

 

“C’mon, dude,” Kwan said, slapping Fenton’s face. “Shit, wake up. Fuck fuck fuck, _please_ don’t be dead.”

Fenton groaned and cracked his eyes open, wincing. “Wha—waz gon on?”

“You passed out. You okay?”

Fenton made a noise in the back of his throat and shook his head as if to clear it. “Kwan? Izzat you?”

“Yeah, dipshit. Who else? Did you hit your head? Have a concussion or something?”

Fenton blinked and his eyes refocused. Cracking a smile, he swatted away Kwan’s hands. “I didn’t know you cared.”

Kwan let out all of his breath in a _whoosh_ and rocked back on his heels. The nerd was fine, then, if he was still this sassy. “Asshole,” he said.

“Hey, I just saved your life.”

“Well I’ve pulled you out of the ground like eighty billion times today, so I figure we’re even.”

Fenton started to push himself up, then fell down, grabbing at his side. “Oh _fuck_ that hurts.” Easing up his shirt revealed an already-purpling bruise over his ribcage, disappearing under a nude binder. Bile rose in Kwan’s throat.

“That looks nasty,” he said, swallowing. Looping an arm around Fenton’s shoulders, Kwan helped him sit up. “Do you think you broke something?”

“I have no idea,” Fenton said. His breaths were shallow. “It feels like someone’s stabbing me every time I breathe in, if that means anything to you.”

Kwan shrugged. “It means you should probably take off your binder,” he said.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Okay,” Kwan said, considering. His mom always complained when they wrapped people’s ribs in movies and stuff. Said it did more harm than good. It stood to reason, then, that the compression of a binder would have the same effect. Which meant that Fenton needed that thing off sooner rather than later. “Okay, then let me get it off for you.”

“Dude, no.”

“This is _so_ not the time for you to be a prude.”

“A _prude_ ? This is my _binder_ , you dick—”

“I’m not trying to be a creep, okay! But my mom always says it’s important for people with broken ribs to breathe properly so you don’t get pneumonia or some shit, which means no binder. And do you really think you could get that off on your own? Do you have a better idea?”

Fenton bit his lip and looked down.

“Look,” Kwan said with a sigh, “I get that it’s private. I get that in any other circumstance you wouldn’t ever want me to touch it. I get that. But you need to get that binder off.”

Fenton didn’t say anything, and Kwan thought he was going to refuse. Then, he lifted his head up to meet Kwan’s eyes.

“All right,” he said with a light smile, “but you’re still a dick.”

“Har har,” Kwan said.

They eased the t-shirt off without much trouble, but that left the much-tighter binder for Kwan. After a moment, he slid his fingers under the sleek material and began to peel it off, inch by inch. When it was bunched under the armpits, he guided Fenton’s right arm into a right angle. He stretched out the binder as far as he could and maneuvered the arm as gently as he could. Despite his care, Fenton gasped and bit his lip as he raised the arm to fit it through.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, pushing the arm through. The left arm was easier—all the damage was on Fenton’s right side—and he slid the binder the rest of the way off. He then handed back the baggy white t-shirt and looked away as Fenton slid it on.

“Kwan,” Fenton said once he was done. Kwan turned toward him.

“Yeah?”

“Did I just fight a ghost?”

“Dude,” Kwan said, “you just _beat_ a ghost.”

“Holy shit.”

“You just beat a _ghost_. Of an octopus.” Kwan ran his fingers through his hair. “Ghosts are fucking real, and there’s a goddamn octopus ghost. An ectopus? And—and—and Danny-fucking-Fenton just beat it up.”

“I just beat up a ghost,” Fenton said. “I’ve never even beaten up a person before!”

“Holy shit,” Kwan said, grinning. “That was fucking awesome.”

Come tomorrow, Kwan’s neck was going to be almost as purple as Fenton’s side. Fenton will start to hover around him in a minute or so, remembering the time Kwan had spent as the ghost’s plaything. He’ll have an ugly bruise on his arm as well, and he’ll explain both as an ill-fated fall into the river. His mother won’t believe him, and his friends will be pissed that he has to miss the next game.

For now, Kwan stared at the scrawny little geek boy, covered in sweat and bruises, rising up off the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm. gay


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny considers Kwan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to d-o-t-s on tumblr for beta'ing this chapter! the plot slowly inches forward here and Things begin to Happen

When Danny woke up Sunday morning, the pain in his side had receded to a dull ache. Lifting his shirt, he felt along the tender area, which had been purple and swollen last night but was now yellowed and even. He prodded his ribcage. It hurt, sure, but it was a far cry from last night’s mind-numbing agony.

He took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out. A burn in his side, but otherwise it was fine.

“What the hell,” he said to himself. Was it a new ghost power? Should he text Kwan about this? Or would that be weird?

“Hey Danny?” Jazz said through his door, rapping her knuckles on the frame. He jerked his head up at the noise, shoving down his pajama shirt to cover the bruise.

His voice cracked. “Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

“Uh, sure.”

The door swung open with a creak and Jazz stepped in, closing it behind her with a soft _click_. She hesitated, then moved to join Danny on the bed.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you lately,” she said.

He looked away. “What are you talking about?”

Jazz raised an eyebrow at him. “Danny. I’ve driven you to school since Wednesday. You would never willingly spend that much time with me unless you were avoiding something—or some _one_ —else.”

Danny winced and stared at his hands.

Sighing, Jazz placed her hand on his knee. “Look, I’m not trying to force you to talk to me. But you _should_ talk to Sam and Tucker. They’ve been your friends for years. You can’t honestly tell me you’re okay with losing them like this. Because you _will_ lose them if you keep this up.”

As she spoke, Danny hunched over further. “What can I even say to them?”

“Try the truth,” Jazz said, “even if the truth is that you can’t tell them just yet. If they’re the friends you think they are, they’ll understand.”

“Even Sam?”

“Yeah,” she said with a chuckle, “even Sam.”

Danny hugged himself.

“Just… think about it, okay?” Jazz said. She tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear and Danny leaned into the touch. “You’ll be okay, little brother.”

“Thanks,” Danny said around the lump in his throat. Jazz lingered, rubbing his shoulder for a moment, before she pressed a kiss to his forehead and walked out.

Rolling over on the bed, Danny picked up his phone off the nightstand and pulled up his messages, scrolling back through the ones from Sam and Tucker over the past few days.

From: Sam

_hey danny where’d you go? you vanished after lunch_

_dude you ok_

_dude_

_are you seriously ignoring us_

_what the fuck danny_

_youre getting rides from jazz to avoid us???_

_seriously did we do something wrong?_

_danny please just talk to us_

From: Tucker

_sam’s wigging out cause you ran out at lunch. you good?_

_hey dude not trying to pry but youve been mia today are you ok_

_we’re still on for thursday right_

_dude this is not cool_

Then there was the message he’d sent them both on Thursday letting them know he wouldn’t make it, and a flurry of messages after that asking him what was going on. All of which he’d ignored. He hadn’t been able to hide his issues from them, so he’d hid from them altogether.

But Jazz was right. He owed his friends an explanation, even if all he had was a shitty one.

To: Tucker

_hey dude. im really sorry ive been ghosting you. and its not ok and i get that. and i do have a reason, but i cant really tell you what it is. not yet at least. im so sorry dude tho and i will buy you your weight in nasty burgers to make up for it_

Danny sent the message, heart pounding. He felt like he’d had ten cups of coffee, jittery and refreshing his messages over and over to see if Tucker had replied.

And Tucker would be the easy one here.

After an eternity of a minute, his phone buzzed.

From: Tucker

_hey, it’s ok_

_i mean im still kinda mad i guess_

_but i’ll get over it once you buy me those burgers im sure_

Letting out a long breath, Danny allowed himself to smile. Tucker was a great friend.

From: Tucker

_and i’m here whenever you want to talk about it_

To: Tucker

_thanks. and when im ready, you’ll be the first to know i promise_

But now he had to apologize to Sam, who could turn grudge-holding into an Olympic event. She was amazing to have as a friend: fun and funny and loyal and kind, and Danny wanted to make up with her, but she got over things on her own schedule. There was little Danny could do to speed it along beyond apologizing.

To: Sam [Draft]

_hey, i’m really sorry i never responded to any of your texts and was avoiding you for the past few days. you and tucker both deserved better than that, and i’m sorry. and i’m also sorry that i still can’t really tell you whats going on with me. i don’t really understand it myself yet, but it has nothing to do with you or tucker and everything to do with me. but i am sorry_

Danny paused, finger hovering over the send button. It did have a little bit to do with her, after all, and what she’d said in the lunchroom. But she had no idea he’d even heard that, and would hardly be fair for him to continue holding that against her. She was worried about him because she cared. She didn’t deserve for him to keep holding what had happened before against her.

He took a deep breath and hit send.

She didn’t respond right away like Tucker. She’d told him once before that she never texted when angry or else she might say something she’d regret. It would be a while before she cooled off enough to talk to him again.

Even though he knew it would happen, he couldn’t stop his heart from pounding at every second that went by without a response. He pulled up some slow music and laid back down in his bed, closing his eyes and praying for sleep he knew wouldn’t come.

 

* * *

 

Danny spent the day in his room, catching up on all the homework he’d ignored the past week. He still turned invisible and intangible sometimes without warning, but it didn’t matter as much when his door was closed.

It was extra practice; the more he did it, the more he could identify the electric hum in his veins and separate it from his normal energy. Invisibility was a high pitched buzz under his skin, intangibility was a lower frequency, and normal was in the middle. To stop them from popping up when he didn’t want, he had to keep it at the middle frequency.

It was a lot easier than even two days ago, for sure. He could mostly keep the buzz in the back of his mind now. Stressing too much about it sent the frequencies all out of whack, so if he kept his mind clear, he could keep it under control. He’d even slept through the night without falling through his mattress.

He kind of hated that Kwan had been right about it, but he loved feeling even somewhat normal much more.

Danny frowned. Kwan, annoying and dickish though he may be, was strangled for a while yesterday. He’d insisted he was fine, but there could be any number of complications they weren’t aware of. Danny wasn’t sure how much he could trust Kwan’s self-diagnosis.

He should check on him. Just to be sure.

To: Kwan

_hows your neck_

He threw his phone down on the bed and turned back to his algebra homework, but it buzzed half a second later. He flung himself onto the mattress to reach it, only a slight twinge in his ribs, and unlocked the screen to a new text.

From: Kwan

_hurts, but it’s fine_

_mom’s been freaking out tho. she almost took me to the er but i talked her out of it. she knows i’m lying about how it happened_

To: Kwan

_oof did you get in trouble_

From: Kwan

_not yet. i think she thinks the injuries are punishment enough that i won’t do it again_

To: Kwan

_i certainly hope so. i’m not looking for a repeat of that experience_

From: Kwan

_same_

_how’re your ribs_

Danny pulled up his shirt again. Twenty-four hours later, the bruises were almost gone. It shouldn’t be possible, but here he was.

He snapped a picture of the damage and typed out another text.

To: Kwan

_well, it’s better_

_[one picture attached]_

From: Kwan

_what the fuck_

_what the fuck what the fuck what the fuuuuuucccckkkk_

_is it a ghost thing do you think_

To: Kwan

_what else would it be?_

From: Kwan

_point_

_shit tho how did this get even weirder_

_at least you shouldn’t have any trouble wearing your binder to school tomorrow_

Danny’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t even thought about his binder or school tomorrow—but Kwan had. Kwan had thought about whether Danny would be able to wear his binder, something that was important to Danny but didn’t matter at all to Kwan.

At least, he’d thought it didn’t.

To: Kwan

_yeah_

Maybe he should say something else, but what could he say? “Thanks for caring”? That would either come off as sarcastic or pathetic, neither of which was ideal.

He locked his phone and laid back on the bed, one arm hanging over his eyes. It buzzed in his hand a minute later and he glanced down to see a new text.

From: Sam

_i’m glad ur ok but im definitely still pissed. i’ll let you know when im not_

Danny grimaced. Sam wouldn’t talk to him for the next few days, at least. Sam knew herself and her temper; she knew how destructive she could be towards her relationships when she was angry. She only yelled at people she didn’t care about offending. Stressful as it was, her reticence was a good sign.

To: Sam

_and i am sorry_

From: Sam

_i know_

 

* * *

 

A week passed.

Sam thawed toward him around lunchtime on Tuesday. She started pestering him with questions about when he’d be back on for Doomed (he was free that night), how many things exploded in his house over the weekend (six, counting the pie), and if he knew why Kwan looked like he’d gone ten rounds with an extension cord (she didn’t expect him to answer this one).

He still had bouts of invisibility and intangibility, but it was reasonable, and getting easier every day. He turned in his late lab work to Lancer. He carried a beaker on Wednesday without dropping it—after dropping two others on Monday when Sam still refused to look at him, but still. Progress.

Kwan, though. Kwan was another issue.

They met up on Monday again, in the same forest clearing. Danny had thought maybe, after Saturday, they were kinda-sorta something like friends. Bonds forged in the fire of a ghost octopus ( _ectopus_ , Kwan had said) battle, and all that. Well, friends was an overstatement. But maybe… friendly acquaintances. The kind that nod to each other in the hallway when no one else is looking.

That afternoon, however, Kwan seldom glanced up from his Sports Illustrated Magazine. It was the exact same copy he’d had before, and he sat under a tree, scanning each page like they would tell him who would win the Superbowl this year, or whatever it was jocks cared about.

The bruises on Kwan’s neck had dulled to a purple-brown by Monday afternoon. His hand would drift up to rub at it every few minutes, and sometimes he would wince as he swallowed, but he never looked at Danny.

It pissed him off.

“Okay, dude, what’s your deal?”

Kwan licked his thumb and flicked the page. “I don’t have a deal.”

“Uh huh. So that’s why you’re rereading the same sports magazine you’ve read like six times before.”

“I learn new things every time.”

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “What, are you mad at me or something?”

“No.”

“So why the silent treatment?”

“Why the questions?” Kwan flipped the page. “We’re not friends. Why the fuck do you even care?”

Danny huffed. “I _don’t_ , I’m just curious why you’re mad all of a sudden.”

“I’m not mad,” Kwan said. He put down the magazine and gestured to his neck. “But I can’t play in the game this Saturday because of this and Dash isn’t talking to me.”

“Look, dude, I’m sorry about that, but I did the best I—”

Kwan rolled his eyes. “Seriously. Not mad. But we’re not friends dude. I’m never going to talk to you again after this. You’ve already got this pretty much figured out—it’s just practice at this point. I’ll uphold my end of the deal, but I’m not doing anything else that could jeopardize my standing with my friends, capiche?”

“And by ‘anything that could jeopardize your standing’, you mean… talking to me?”

A shrug. “Pretty much.”

“Just a thought: if talking to me could get you kicked out of your friends, maybe they’re shitty friends.”

Kwan picked his magazine back up. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Danny snorted. “And for a second there I almost thought you weren’t a dick. Glad we’ve cleared that up.”

“Whatever.”

On Tuesday, Danny texted Kwan not to bother coming over Thursday. Kwan responded with a thumbs up emoji. Danny almost sent back a middle finger emoji, but instead shoved the phone in his pocket.

Whatever. This was always going to happen. They weren’t friends.

He spent the rest of the week practicing his powers and playing Doomed with Sam and Tucker and then scrambling to do his homework after playing Doomed into the wee hours of the night. He did extra chores around the house for some cash and bought Tucker his promised hamburgers. He wheedled Jazz into helping him buy a fancy plant for Sam’s greenhouse. He slept. He ate.

It was good. It was normal.

He settled.

 

* * *

 

Last period English was the only time of the day Danny saw Kwan. It had been a week since he’d last spoken to him. He snuck glances at Kwan as Lancer droned on about the green light in _The Great Gatsby_. Kwan didn’t look at him once.

It wasn’t a cold shoulder, exactly; Danny might have preferred if it was. Kwan wouldn’t ignore him if he asked him something, he was sure. But Kwan wouldn’t offer anything up either. It was the status quo. It was indifference.

It pissed him off.

“So, class,” Lancer said, his marker squeaking across the whiteboard, “who can tell me what the green light is an example of?”

A wave of cold swamped Danny’s body and he gasped, his breath coming out blue-white just like in the woods.

Then, he spotted a green glow outside the window. Flying out across the football field was the ectopus from before. Two rows up, Kwan had gone rigid, head turned toward the window as well. Danny remembered the look on Kwan’s face, turning blue as the ectopus squeezed his neck. Kwan could have died. If Danny hadn’t done something, he would have.

“Mr. Lancer,” Danny said, raising his hand before he could think too long about it. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Kwan jerked back to look at him, and unreadable look on his face. Danny ignored him

Lancer sighed. “Mr. Fenton, the bell will ring in five minutes. Surely you can wait.”

The ectopus vanished over the stadium. If he didn’t leave now, he’d never find it. “Can’t wait,” he said, running out the door. “See you tomorrow!”

“Mr. Fenton, get back—”

Lancer’s words cut off behind him as the door closed and he raced into the nearest janitor’s closet to transform into his ghost-self. His mouth was dry and bitter, his hands sweaty. He couldn’t believe he was doing this at all, but, if he was going to do it, the last thing he needed was someone recognizing him when he left the school building. His ghost form still looked pretty much the same, but the white hair and the glowing and the flying should throw people off.

At least, he hoped so.

 

* * *

 

“All right,” he said, floating through the trees, “where did you run off to?”

As he scanned the forest, his flight gave out and he landed on his feet with a thud and a wince as he jarred his ankles.

“Right,” he said, smacking himself in the forehead. “I kinda suck at this still.”

Walking it was.

He’d only been walking for a few minutes when he heard a twig snap behind him. Whirling around, he pulled his fist back to punch—

—and it was _Kwan_. There in his stupid letterman jacket, lips pressed into a thin line and nostrils flared, storming through the underbrush.

“What the hell?” Danny said, lowering his fist.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Kwan said, jamming his finger into Danny’s chest.. “What happened to keeping all this a secret?”

Grabbing Kwan’s arm, he moved his finger out of the way. “What are you talking about? I didn’t tell anyone.”

“No, you just ran out in the middle of class to go fight a ghost!”

“That’s why I look like this, idiot! No one will recognize me, even if they do see me.”

Kwan dragged a hand down his face. “Dude, you look practically the same.”

“It works for Superman.”

“It works for— _Superman is a fictional-fucking-character, shitbrain_.”

“Look, I’m not planning on this being a regular thing, okay? But that ghost is still out there. It nearly killed you last weekend, and there’s no guarantee that it won’t try that with someone else. I can’t just let that happen.”

Kwan paced across the ground. “This isn’t your fucking origin story, Fenton. And you don’t even know what that thing wants! Maybe it just wants to chill; ever think of that?”

Sighing, Danny gestured at where Kwan still had a faint bruise. “Tell that to your neck.”

“You’re the one who’s always saying I’m a dick. I probably pissed it off or something.”

“Dude, even if that were true, that doesn’t make this thing safe it that’s how it has a temper tantrum. I have to do something.” Danny was yelling now. He didn’t mean to, he was sure, but he was yelling because Kwan just _didn’t get it_ and how did he not get it? People could die. This meant so much more than their stupid deal.

“No you don’t,” Kwan said. “You don’t have a responsibility or anything like that. You’re just some kid.”

Danny smiled at that, slow and sad. “Don’t I?”

That stopped Kwan’s pacing. “What are you talking about?”

“Kwan. How do you think that ghost got here?”

Kwan sucked in air through his teeth. “The portal.”

Their eyes met.

Danny’s heart clenched in his chest. He pictured Tucker, being flung around by the ectopus. Jazz, her face turning blue. His parents, knocked out cold on the floor of their lab. “We let that thing out. I should probably put it back, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but… how are you going to do that? Are you just going to drag it by its tentacles around town? Throw it into the portal and hope it stays there? Do you even have a plan?”

Shrugging, Danny turned back to where he’d last seen the ectopus. “I’ll figure it out once I track it down.”

Kwan yelled after him. “Well… well fine, then! Go fight a ghost! Just don’t come crying to me when you die for real.”

As he ran further into the forest, Danny didn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooo yeah. and next chapter is going to cover roughly the same time line as this one, but from paulina's point of view, so uh. that's happening. don't be too surprised
> 
> (i'm actually p pumped for the Paulina chapter don't mind me)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paulina has her suspicions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: this takes place over the same time frame as the last chapter, but its from Paulina's POV. things are getting.... interesting

Paulina wasn’t the worrying type.

She didn’t worry when her “boyfriend” Dash spent all his time flirting up the rest of the cheerleading team—she had Star for herself, after all. She didn’t worry when her _papí_ pulled off his belt at night—he’d never find out about Star until they were both away at college and out of his reach. And she certainly didn’t worry when Kwan came to school one Monday with a bruise the color of her favorite smokey eyeshadow and hoarse like he’d been screaming all night at a Dumpty Humpty concert.

So it wasn’t _concern_ for him or anything like it, but rather that what Kwan did reflected on all of them. Because of his injuries, he was out for the next game and his backup was way too small for an offensive lineman. As her _mamí_ taught her, appearances were everything, and Kwan appeared to be the reason they were sure to lose on Friday.

If it was a once off, then that was fine. He could recover. He’d still be welcome at the lunch table. Could still wear the letterman jacket. It wasn’t _unfixable_. Her _mamí_ and _papí_ would never find out about it, would never need to know that Kwan had jeopardized his standing. She could still talk to him like a friend and be safe.

But she had to be sure it would never happen again, and that meant finding out what had happened in the first place. And if Kwan wouldn’t tell her, she’d find out on her own.

* * *

 

Her first attempt was in Algebra that morning.

“So Kwan,” she said, leaning over his desk. She pointed at one of the problems in the workbook, so Ms. Marshall would think she was giving him some pointers. “What exactly happened to your neck?”

“I fell into the river in the park.” Kwan didn’t take his eyes off the paper.

“Please, that ‘river’ could be charitably called a creek.”

A shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just what happened.”

“Ms. Sanchez,” Ms. Marshall said, coming up behind her, “I know you’re worried about your friend, but if you will please limit your conversations to the quadratic formula for the time being? You can talk to him at lunch.”

Paulina narrowed her eyes at Kwan, who was biting his lip and still not looking at her. Ugh, didn’t he get that she was trying to _help_? They all had expectations to live up to. She was trying to make sure he didn’t lose his head and do something he couldn’t come back from. She didn’t _want_ to have to kick him out.

If he kept this up, though, she might not have a choice.

* * *

 

She tried again at lunch that afternoon. Well, Star did. She couldn’t show too much interest in it herself, of course, and Star knew which questions to ask.

When Star opened her fruit cup, Paulina nudged her under the table and tilted her head at Kwan. “So Kwan, did you get in a fight or something?”

Star had long since perfected the nonchalant act; it was one of those things Paulina admired about her. She stared at her fruit cup, took a bite, smiled at Kwan like she didn’t really care about the answer. Anyone who hadn’t spent much time around Star wouldn’t think anything about it.

Kwan, though. Kwan had known them all for years.

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’. “I fell in the river. Got tangled up in some vines.”

“Yeah, well thanks to that,” Dash said through a mouthful of potatoes, pointedly not looking at Kwan, “he’s going to miss the game this Friday. We were finally gonna have the chance to beat Ridgeway High, but now my blindside is being covered by _Larry Lemon_. That kid couldn’t block _Fenturd_.”

As Dash spoke, Paulina was the only one to keep her eyes on Kwan, hunched over his lunch in shame. This meant that she was also the only one to see Kwan flinch at the mention of Fenton.

Interesting.

* * *

 

Her third and final attempt came Monday after the last bell rang.

“Oh, Kwan,” she said, looping her arm through his, “My _papí_ just bought me the coolest glow-in-the-dark bracelet, come check it out!” Before he could respond, she pulled him into the nearest janitor closet, her fingers vice-like around his bicep.

“Jesus, Paulina,” he said rubbing at his arm. “What was that for?”

She closed the door behind them, standing between Kwan and the exit. “We need to talk.”

Sighing, Kwan ran his hand through his hair. “Really? Glow-in-the-dark bracelet was all you could come up with?”

“It’s perfect. Now everyone will just think we’re hooking up in here.”

Kwan opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. “Okay, you’re probably right.”

“Honey, I’m always right.”

He said nothing to that, looking around the closet, up and down the shelves, at the filthy mop bucket in the corner, anywhere but her. After a minute or so of awkward silence, he broke. “So what’s this about, anyway?”

“Oh, cut the crap already.”

“What are you—”

“You didn’t fall in a fucking river, Kwan.”

“This again?” he said, huffing. “How many times do I have to tell you: I just fell! It was an accident, all right?”

“Come on. We both know those marks on your neck aren’t from a fall.”

“Look, I got tangled in some vines too—”

Paulina cut him off. “You were strangled. Someone put their arm around your neck and they strangled you. I don’t know, maybe it was some freaky breath play thing you were doing with Fenton or something and it went too far. I don’t really care, to be honest, except that I have to because you’re one of us. You reflect on all of us. And if you can’t make me believe, right here, right now, that it won’t ever happen again, we may have some… issues, going forward.”

“How the hell would you know what strangling looks like?”

She laughed at that. It was a high-pitched, ugly noise, like someone had described to her what a laugh sounded like and this was her best approximation. “Really? You’re asking me how I know? Did you forget who my _papí_ is?”

He winced. “Right, sorry. But—look, there was no _strangling_ or—or breath play—god, I feel dirty just saying that. And my English project with Fenton is almost over so I won’t be talking to him anymore and that’s just—so not a problem. And it won’t—it won’t happen ever again.”

He met her eyes then, for the first time all day. “Paulina, I swear it will never happen again.”

She still didn’t know what had really happened, and she hated that. But looking at him right then, she couldn’t say she didn’t believe him.

“If that’s all?” he said, moving her out of the way of the door. She didn’t fight him. “I’ve got to meet up with Fenton for the project, but this should be the last time, or at least second to last. All right?”

“All right,” she said, “but text me afterward. Let me know what’s going on.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” he said, throwing her a mocking salute as he walked out, leaving her alone in the closet.

* * *

 

Her phone buzzed at 11:13 AM Tuesday morning.

From: Kwan

_we’re clear_

To: Kwan

_no more Fenton?_

From: Kwan

_no more Fenton_

* * *

 

But Kwan still wasn’t quite normal.

He put on a good show, Paulina gave him that. He joked around with Dash the whole week until Dash forgave him for having to miss the game. He got in an argument with Valerie about who the best member of Dumpty Humpty was. He gossiped with Star about Wes’s rebound with Tyson. He did all the standard Kwan things and he never once looked at Fenton.

But he was jumpy, flinching when Dash came up behind him and slung his arm around his neck. And, despite her best efforts, he still wouldn’t tell her what had happened to him last weekend.

Perhaps his worst offense, though, was that he was too good at avoiding Fenton for it to be natural. Even Paulina ran into the nerd every once in a while; it wasn’t that big of a school. They had classes together and the same lunch. It happened. Kwan, however, had perfected the art of not seeing Fenton. He never even looked toward Fenton’s side of the cafeteria, as though if he even chanced making eye-contact with Fenton he’d lose his carefully constructed defenses.

So he cared. _Coño_.

They needed to nip this in the bud. Otherwise, even if Kwan intended to keep his promise to her now, he may later decide Fenton was worth it. She had no idea what he saw in the dweeb, but she needed to know. Or else everything would fall apart.

* * *

 

The only time Kwan and Fenton were in close quarters was during seventh period English, the last class of the day. Paulina sat in the back of the classroom, right corner, so she had a clear view of everyone else. Fenton sat in the row ahead of her, three seats to the left, and Kwan sat two rows ahead of him, in between her and Fenton.

By the next Monday, Fenton seemed to have given up on catching Kwan’s attention, though she still caught him staring at Kwan’s letterman jacket from time to time. It was a good sign, nonetheless; if Fenton wasn’t trying to talk to Kwan and Kwan wasn’t trying to talk to Fenton, they’d both forget the whole thing soon enough.

Then Fenton gasped, and for a moment she could’ve sworn she saw his breath. Ahead of him, Kwan stiffened, and they both looked out the window at… something. She couldn’t see whatever it was from her angle, but she could see Kwan and he looked _scared_.

“Mr. Lancer,” Fenton said, thrusting his hand in the air. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

For the first time in almost a full week, Kwan turned to look at Fenton. Something passed between them, but she had no idea what.

She hated not knowing.

“Mr. Fenton, the bell will ring in a minute. Surely you can wait.”

“Can’t wait,” Fenton said, sprinting out the door, leaving his backpack behind. “See you tomorrow!”

“Mr. Fenton, get back here this instant!”

The door swung shut in the middle of his sentence, and Fenton was gone. Mr. Lancer and the rest of the class stared at where the dweeb had run out ad the final bell rang.

Paulina, however, stared at Kwan. So she was the only one who noticed that when he ran out straight after the bell, he left his backpack behind as well.

* * *

 

“First he keeps blowing us off to spend time with that Fenton nerd,” Paulina said. She pulled her shirt back down from where Star hands had been a minute ago. “Then he’s bruised to hell from _falling in a river._ And now he’s running out of class right after Fenton. It’s gotta have something to do with the dweeb.”

“So they did an English project together,” Star said, reapplying her lip gloss. Most of her original coat was on Paulina’s neck; she wiped it off with a tissue. “It’s not exactly suspicious. Kwan was probably running because he forgot something in the locker room or something.” She hopped up on the bathroom counter, leaning forward to kiss Paulina on the forehead.

Smiling despite herself, Paulina nudged her girlfriend away. “Seriously? Let's go over this again: Kwan all of sudden starts spending time with Fenton, and then he comes back looking like my _papí_ came after him with a rope. _Then_ , he’s running off after class, leaving his backpack behind. And he’s twitchy as hell too! You really don’t think one has anything to do with the other?”

“Well, he _did_ almost jump out of his skin when Dash dropped his tray on the table at lunch the other day.”

“Exactly!”

“Still, what makes you think that’s got to do with Fenton? The nerd couldn’t hurt a fly, even if he wanted to.”

Paulina scoffed. “I don’t think he _attacked_ Kwan or anything; he’s not cool enough for that. But there’s something going on there, and I’m going to find out what.”

Bouncing down from the counter, Star pulled her in for another series of kisses. “I still think,” she said between pecks, “you’re nuts, but you’re very cute.” Paulina giggled and fisted her hand in Star’s hair, deepening the kiss.

A thump behind them and they whirled around to face Sam Manson, standing in an open doorway, mouth agape, her backpack on the floor behind her.

“Holy shit,” Manson said. “I did not see that coming.”

Paulina could only stare in horror, her fingers still caught in the strands of Star’s hair. “You—you didn’t see anything.” Oh, _mierda_ , she’d never fucking buy that. Tears started to spill over and Paulina couldn’t hold back a sob. Her life was over. Manson already hated her; she’d have no reason to keep this a secret, and her _papí_ would find out before the end of the day and he’d be waiting at home, belt in hand, and she’d never be able to see Star ever again, oh _coño_ …

“You’re cheating on Dash? With Star? Woah. Wild.” Manson blinked a few times, then shrugged.

Paulina wanted to pull out her stupid bottle-black hair and bash her head in. She wanted to fall to her knees and beg the nerd not to tell. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. In front of her, Manson moved toward one the stalls, like their conversation was over. How could she take this so lightly? This _comemierda_ had just ruined Paulina’s life for the rest of forever, she could at least act like it.

Waving her hands about, Star tried to salvage the situation. “Wait, wait, it’s not cheating! Dash knows all about it, he’s just her beard, okay? Her dad would _freak_ if he knew, you can’t tell _anyone_.”

“Woah, woah, hold on. What makes you think I’d tell? I’m _not_ that big of an asshole.” Manson scrunched up her nose. “Is that seriously what you think of me? That I’d out you just for shits and giggles?”

Paulina hiccoughed on her sob, shock shoving her anger and fear to the side. “You—you mean that?”

“Well, yeah. I may not like you, but outing you without your consent _way_ crosses the line. I learned my lesson on that a while ago.” She looked away. “Plus, I get having shitty parents. My mom hasn’t spoken to me in five months because I told her I wasn’t interested in dating anyone ever. She was _devastated_ that her darling Sammykins would be _alone_ all her life and never give her any _grandbabies_ or even _in-laws_. So yeah, I get not wanting your parents to know.”

Wiping at her eyes, Paulina looked Manson up and down. “But you _hate_ me.”

“So?”

“So… you really won’t tell anyone?” Star said, voice small.

Manson rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, _yes_. Jesus, how many times do I have to say it?”

Star squealed and threw her arms around a stiff Manson, who looked confused at the contact. But Paulina couldn’t move. Just a minute ago, she was sure her life was over. Now Manson was saying that she’d keep her most closely guarded secret, no questions asked. She hadn’t even asked for favors, or tried to use it as blackmail. She acted like the idea that she would tell anyone was offensive.

The emotional whiplash had her woozy, and she grabbed the counter for support.

“Anyway,” Manson said, peeling off Star’s arm. “I’m gonna. Go pee now. Since that’s. What I came here to do.”

“Uh, right,” Star said, blushing and standing back. “Just, thank you. We _so_ owe you for this.”

Manson waved it off. “No you don’t. I’m just being a decent person. You don’t owe me shit for that.” She tilted her head and tapped her chin as though considering something. “You do, however, owe me for being jerks to me and my friends. Maybe… think about that?”

She walked into one of the stalls and Paulina met Star’s eyes. They were going to have to talk about this later, Paulina knew, to talk about the security of their meetup sites and about the trustworthiness of Manson. Still, they’d dodged a bullet here, it seemed. She couldn’t believe it.

“Could you guys please get out of here?” Manson said, jarring her out of her thoughts. “I really don’t need you to listen to me pee.”

Paulina laughed before she could stop herself. “All right, all right, we’re leaving. Uh, bye?” She leaned into the mirror, fixed her mascara and eyeliner, and walked out into the hall, side by side with Star, their hands almost touching but not quite.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl im pretty much winging this but i love paulina


End file.
